loveofsophia wrote:
Ok...so I was being a little overboard (I guess some frustration came up). Calling someone rude is not being rude.

That annoyance came through in my tone, along with calling others rude, is certainly evident. I was being sweeping to catch all those with whom they felt it applied or was doing an injustice to in being applied to them. I had a provocative and yes, annoying turn.

God bashers...ok...let me try again...those that believe the use of the word God (or at least give the impression) is inherently mistaken, no matter how it is used. Now maybe I misunderstand, but I get the impression that you wouldn't complain if the word just blipped out of existence. If I am mistaken, fine, it happens. It seems to represent bad and I see both good and bad in it.

I don't either...however, I do believe there is an underlying mystery to anything being at all (My emotive reaction is tied into a rational evaluation). I don't know much about that mystery other than it results in now, and now some more moments passing by with me present to them. I am genuinely grateful for being.

I don’t find much difference between saying the great nothing lies outside existence and that God lies outside existence.

If it is a contradiction to you, fine, but where is your principle of charity?

I am saying that the inexplicable seems to underlay all that is, what we know is a model we have created and seems to correlate with what exists. That we can point to where we haven't been and say there is something beyond the horizon, this isn't all that difficult to understand (unless you want to make it that way).

I don't know RN, I just might take offences to your allusion that I simply don't have a clue as to what I am talking about (taps foot dramatically). You should be ashamed. (to use one of your now favorite expressions)

The notion of God is ridiculous if you approach the matter as if God can only be understood in scientific terms.

There is no evidence, duh...but this is a moot point. The notion of placing a word, a symbol, to indicate the great underplaying mystery to anything being at all (capturing poetically both our gratitude and stupefaction at our being) is not ridiculous. Saying ridiculous doesn't make it so, unless you are talking about those that say, God is a reality I know exists. I would hope I would say that I disagree with that…not that it is ridiculous. I wonder if you get the difference sometimes.

You with your moralizing tone above (at the beginning). Sheesh.

I am not saying I agree with the Judeo-Christian dogma.

I am saying poetry and meaning exist within the expressions and imaginings of the Christian/Jewish/Muslim.

I am not saying lets be friends, forget the differences, I am saying the inspiration for the expression that gets concretized (the "religious," as I consider them, take what is poetic and speak like it is literal) in religions is quite beautiful and seems to represent some real experiences and some senses of relationship with the world and all humanity.

Psychologically (biologically manifesting), just focusing on what one wants and needs is proven as a placebo in medicine (which is prayer, essentially, as well as meditation, etc). There are things that are genuinely good within the religious traditions but inherently tribal and closed. I say hurrah for the good and goodbye to the bad.

I have a hard time with it, honestly, the tone thing. Mainly it is because some ways of communicating to people are more about emotional gratifying yourself and some are about maintaining a healthy intent toward understanding the other. It is that simple.

I was partly doing it to get a rise out of someone, I did. I guess I was itching for a fight. Lets say I was being provocative and honest...somewhat...about my irritation about tone. It just gets me annoyed (disrespect). I feel disrespect does seem to manifest occasionally in 180 proof and your tone. It may be annoyance...but it comes off sometimes as haughty senses of your own superiority.

Also, I feel you guys have such a penchant for clarity that simplification slips in under the illusion of clarity. I am willing to drop that tone tack however.

180 proof loves to go on about the atrocities of the religious...but I feel this tack is basically just honing in on human tribal competitive domineering tendencies. Institutions always dehumanize those involved, bureaucracy, one might call it. The conglomeration of needs, wants, functions, politics, which make up human culture can't be reduced to, God concepts done it.

This is incorrect, in part. Essentially you are totting science and saying other ways of looking at existence are silly (not as genuine, good, helpful). If you apply your truth criteria to poetry it will not work out so well.

Humans have experiences that are hard to describe. They sometimes condense them into poetry and myth.

It is true that our relationship with existence if far too complex to fathom in its entirety. Science deals with the domain of prediction, modeling, and manipulation. Poetry and myth express a different truth, express something that can often be commonly recognized as truthful. Do you actually disagree with this?

Here we go again. You are attempting to say the question is meaningless.

I find it rather ironic. Is it really that hard to know what I am saying? How is any of this here?

That is the question and it is primordial or fundamental in its nature.

You admit to it all being inexplicable and then you say the question is wrong?

Things are, period. I don’t find that particularly satisfying but it is your prerogative.

All those questions you posed are wonderful questions, essentially, why is existence present. It is not a scientific question but its pertinence is no lesser simply because it isn’t. we even imagine some explanation into that problem, quite naturally, should we carry it around authoritatively…this is like taking poetry and stamping it on everyone forehead (think this).

I just don’t by the lunatic claim as being conversational. It is judgmental and closed. Privately, to put one of your favorite criticism back on you, it is fine to think someone is mistaken, maybe horribly, but the whole lunatic, idiot, stupid judgment from on high you project publicly are entirely inappropriate to me.

Well, this is easy to say but more difficult for me to swallow. The reason being that those that take the literal tack on God also have the figurative and poetic elements relating to their thoughts. Essentially, criticism of one is of the other when you argue with them. There in lies the problem, calling them a lunatic does not dispose them toward understanding your perspective. I am saying it is complicated, that is all.

What I was going on about is the limitation in reducing human existence to a scientific frame.

I find it totally unsatisfying and unable to really address some fundamental and underlying questions about my life and existence entire. The limitations of science are as limited as we are in our ability to assess existence and how it has come be as it is, and how it is being at all. A piece of the puzzle we are, we relate to where we connect and see a piece of our picture we exist in, but the currents of the water do seem to indicate mysterious something going on in the depths (to mix my metaphor).

OK…maybe I associated some frustration onto certain phrases I shouldn’t have. Sorry. Do you ever say that to people by chance?

I get the impression that you aim more to educate than to understand sometimes. Certainly, the will to educate is admirable but sometimes it may need a little pretence of mutual respect.

You really have no idea how annoying it is for you to take the parental authoritative tack all the time. Grow down.

It shames me not at all. Why, because it was provocative and probing. Essentially I was attempting to address my observation that the proclivity for categorizing and labeling humans into groups often leads to tribal ways of relating, us vs. them. I note that in all this labeling of ourselves as atheists, theists, and agnostics we can tend to lose sight of the common ground and common experience. To much attention to what differentiates can often lead to silly ways of relating to an other.

I also pointed at this because many theists relate their wonder over life with the myths presented to them and concretized. I was pointing at what is similar between people (in an odd way). And again, aiming to get a rise and get some genuine reactions.

But can it be figuratively true?

I do genuinely apologize if I have actually offended you in some tangible way…I believe you can understand the provocation however.

RN…I am pointing at figurative and literal uses of language. I find all existence magical (do I mean literally or figuratively?).

I would stake my life on being respectful of others.

I react badly to a discussion of the validity of God existing definitively, an objective question, immersed in such judgmental and condemning jargin. I find little respect in your tone on the matter sometimes…maybe you needed a reminder of what it sounds like.

Yes they can, and then once the discussion begins…they can try and explain themselves.

Reformed Nihilist wrote:
Well, congratulations LOS, your provocation worked. You got a rise out of someone. You really pissed me off. Happy that you succeeded? Because I don't feel like pretending that you didn't in this exchange. You have taken someone who would normally try to interpret you as forgivingly as popssible and created someone who is more prone to be confrontational. Hope it was what you really wanted.

Making sweeping generalizations about a group of people and labeling them with prejorative names is rude. Do you really think otherwise?

Agreed on provocative and annoying. I don't see how you failed to miss the fact that you were denegrating all atheists too, not just the "bad" ones. I suppose it's okay to make sweeping generalizations about people's race or sexual choices as long as it's just to be "provocative", and if a black or jew pissed you off. You still don't see how bigoted your remarks were, do you?

There is no word that is inherently wrong no matter how it is used, and I don't think I have come accross anyone who thinks otherwise, excepting maybe the puritanical view that certain curse words are always wrong. So you are talking to no one. You are beating another strawman.

So you aren't talking about experience, you are talking about feeling and thinking things? Feeling and thinking that there is a great mystery beneath our existence is a different proposition than "experiencing" it. I may think and feel it is going to rain (or that I have been abducted by aliens), and I might be very emotionally attached to that thought, but that doesn't make it true that it will rain.

"The great nothing"? How can nothing be great? How can nothing be a "the nothing". It nothing. Not a thing. Doesn't exist. It is not the stuff that exists. What do you thnk "nothing" means? It has no referrent (because there is not "it" to refer to). God (if we were to assume he exists) is something. These are very different propositions.

I'm not trying to fail to understand you. Don't put it on me. It's a contradiction by any standards I am aware of, which is why I asked how I was supposed to interpret it.

Nothing underlays "all that is", or "all that is" would really be "all that is...except the thing that underlays it". So maybe it isn't as easy to understand as you think, being that you are proposing something that is contradictory.

You're very close to encouraging me respond in a way that I should be ashamed of. I made a very simple argument, and it is that when one ascribes properties to "the mysterious" other than that it is mysterious, they are by the definition of the word contradicting themselves. When you talk about mystery, you are saying "I don't know what I am talking about". That's what mystery means. Stuff we don't know about.

How dare you suggest that my argument is equivalent to your bigotry?

Nope. Common sense works too. As long as we are using the word "God" commonly, and not talking about some specialized philosophical God. It's magic jews and voodoo. Taken as a literal fact (as it is proposed), it is ridiculous. Santa, as a metaphor isn't any more ridiculous than God, but people seem to get huffy when you compare believing in God to believing in Santa Claus.

People don't think that God is a metaphor for mysteriousness, they think God is an intentional agent that should be worshiped and that does magic tricks for you if you ask him in your head.

Call a jew a kike, a black person a nigger or a homosexual a fag. See if they respond with a moralizing tone. Want to know what I'd bet on? You might even get a punch in the head for such behaviour, but my "moralizing tone" hurts your feelings. Get over it.

I didn't accuse you of saying that.

Of course it does. Poetry exists in the notion that the heart is the seat of our emotions too, and people even use the phrase poetically, but no one with a reasonable education actually believes it is literally true.

If you are arguing that the King James bible is an important piece of literature, then great. That's literary criticism. It has nothing to do with theism or atheism. The works of Shakespeare are also important works that seem to capture universal elements of human nature, but if anyone were to say that Romeo and Juliet were historical figures (literally), they would be speaking nonsense, right? I'm not talking about what would be the nice way to treat these people, I am just asking if you agree that what they were saying was nonsense? Isn't treating fiction and myth as if it were literally real absurd, lunatic, ridiculous, or whatever other prejorative adjective I might have thrown out? That doesn't mean that otherwise sane, coherent, kind (and whatever other nice thing you want to say about a person) people can't hold a single ridiculous belief. I have seen very clearly that they can. So if you read me, and pretty much every atheist that I read on this forum, there is a criticism of the belief, not a blanket criticism of the person.

Do you think that it is just that easy to seperate the good from the bad? We coould just take the religion part out and we would have placebos. Wait... we do have non religious placebos that are administed by doctors. Isn't that better than faith healers telling people to stop their chemotherapy? The only way that I can see to take the "bad" out is to take the religion out. To stop forcefully indoctrinating children with this nonsense. As long as I see that nonsense is being spread as if it were literal truth, what am I to do but criticize it? If it isn't nonsense, someone can just correct me. I stand waiting to be corrected.

What do you propose specifically? Should I only criticize religious claims when they support terrorism? Only when they cause people to stop taking their medications? When they try to control a Government institutions? What about if they wake me up by soliciting at my door on sunday morning? If someone says something that seems crazy to me, what am I supposed to think or do accodring to you?

I would appreaciate it if you did drop the tone thing. Concerning "I feel you guys have such a penchant for clarity that simplification slips in under the illusion of clarity". I'm not sure how to respond to this. The simplest explanation is usually the clearest, and clear explanations are useful. It once again seems like you are embracing ambiguity and ignorance for some reason that I can't fathom. Could you explain why we shouldn't strive for clear explanations that explain something in the simplest terms?

No, but you seem to fail to recognise that religion is a political beast, not an intellectual musing, and the God that people talk of is nearly exclusively a God of religion. It is a God that determines what people should or shouldn't do, regardless of the facts. It is a God that seperates and ideologizes. Your metaphorical God isn't the God of any significant number of people who speak of God.

Of course I'm not saying that. You beg me for a charitable reading? We treat scientific claims a certain way. They are considered literal fact. We treat analogy, metaphor, poetic truths and other such beasts differently. We interpret them. If I say "I would kill for a beer", no one treats my utterence as if I was actually intending to kill for a beer. People treat God claims in the same way that they treat scientific claim. They treat them as literal fact. That is what I am criticizing, not the metaphorical use of the word God. My only problem with the metaphorical use fof the word God is when it is used intentionally ambiguously, encouraging those who are prone to do so to interpret it literally. Not only is it dishonest, but it condones the acceptence of nonsense.[quote]

Ok...I get it...but I do have concerns about tactfully criticizing beliefs another holds strongly...but maybe thrashing at them will wake them up more...I don't know.

[quote]Agreed. So?

Of course not. I disagree with treating poetic truths as if they were literal truths. Don't you? Doesn't everyone (even theists who hold that God literally exists in heaven and changes the world in literal intentional ways)?

I'm not attempting to say anything, I'm saying what I'm saying. Just address what I said. If it is a thing it exists by definition. There is no other choice. If you disagree, explain why.

As opposed to what? Being somewhere esle? Or not being anywhere? If it wasn't anywhere, then it wouldn't be "any of this". Can you actually imagine that it is possible for your words and intuitions to muddle up your thinking about something, or do you really believe that if it feels like a real and sensible question than it must be? The last question isn't rhetorical. I would like to know if you think that your feeling that a question is meaningful makes it meaningful.

It is? It is a question that has cropped up from time to time throughout man's history, but "primodial or fundamental"? What evidence do you have of that?

What did I admit to being inexplicable? There are plenty of things that are explicable, and although I don't think that any explanation will every be the "final explanation", I also don't think that any specific thing can be entirely inexplicable either. If it was, we woulnd't know about it, wouldn't even have a suspicion about it, and coudn't say a thing about it sensibly. To all intents and purposes, it woudn't exist.

I'm not trying to satisfy you, nor am I criticizing some philosophical God (although I would gladly criticize many philosophical "God" arguments, that is a different subject). I'm talking about God that people talk about every day. God that people pray to. So are you, as noted by the fact that you brought up prayer. You just forget that you're talking about that God and convince yourself that you are just talking about some philosophical entity. That's how pervasive the cultural and social (and thus political) power of religion is. I really don't know why you would bother to call your philosophical fascination with the unknowable "God".

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a ridiculous proposition is ridiculous. It isn't about being closed, and it isn't about attacking people. If it seems ridiculous to me and someone shows me that it is really very reasonable, then I gladly stand corrected. Believing in something strongly is different than being dogmatic, and you seem to be implying that I am being dogmatic. Like I said, I'm the first on board when the mothership lands, but is it really strange, unfair or unusual to call the raelian's beliefs ridiculous? If not, then what's wrong with treating other crazy claims the same? You do realize that raelians aren't all crazy people, they are just people who believe some crazy things.

I am not calling them lunatic, I am calling their ideas lunatic, and only because they (the ideas) are. Didn't I explicitly say that? If people keep their ideas to themselves, I have no problems with not trying to disillusion them. It is when they make public claims or behave in certain ways that I have a problem. It is when "God said so" becomes any sort of public justification for aything that I have a problem, and sadly, I find I have a problem along these lines less than rarely (although I pcik good social circles, so it could be far more often). I'm not going to bust someone's balls for saying they believe something (althouigh I may say that I disagree), but when they start publically acting on that belief, we get a different story.

Those limitations that you claim belong to you. I don't suscribe to them, you can keep them. Science, and our ability to "asses existence and how it came to be" have no specific or particular absolute limitations that come to my mind. That doesn't mean that I think we will ever know everything.

What? "Sorry". Sure. That strikes me as a pretty rude question. Kinda like asking someone if they've heard of deoderant. Have I said something that you think I should apologize for? If so, come out and say it. I'm not sorry for getting offended when offense was offered. If your going to pick a fight, don't whine when you get one.

I make no pretense of respect. If you have my respect, you have it, not a pretense of it. Why pretend? Many aspects of your last post I have very little respect for, and have pointed them out.

Concenring teaching, I am saying things like I see them. I sometimes believe I have something to offer. If I am wrong, then such musings like I offered can easily be ignored without any offense. I aim to educate when I can and understand even if I am educating. A teacher who doesn't understand what their student thinks about the subject isn't a very good teacher. If I am wrong, teach me in what way. I am just as glad to be a student. I would and have learned much from many here on this forum, sometimes just from passively reading, and other times from challenging people or having them challenge me and finding out the strength and sense in their position versus the weakness or lack of sense in mine.

I guess what it boils down to is that if you don't like my style, fine. The social aesthetic allows for a range of styles. That doesn't make the content of what I say any different than if I said it in a way that appealed to you.

Authoritative? I asked you some questions and offered you some analogies to point out how bigoted your statements are. You realize that bigots usually don't know that they are bigots? Explain to me how your statements aren't bigoted. Everybody thinks they're nice people (including bigots), and I'm sure that in most situations and on most topics you are a nice person, but in that other post you were speaking like a bigot, and as one of the targets of this bigotry, one that is far more common and pervasive than you probably believe, I not only take offense, but I want you to realize what you are doing (and hopefully stop it when you do). I respect you enough to tell you straight.
So don't tell me to grow down, step up and be a man. Take some responsability for what you said and either justify it or admit that it was the wrong thing to say. [quote]

Done and done.

[quote]So you made sweeping and intentionally provocative generalizations about a particular group of people using a label to show that labels are bad? Seriously? Are you being honest with me and yourself?

Concerning tribalism, are you aware of anyone who has ever commited any sin against their fellow man for the lack of a belief in something concerete? I do what I do for lot's of reasons, and some of what I do might be us against them, but I am not drawing any us vs. them lines with theists. I offer my beliefs and reasoning when and where it is appropriate, and I defend my right not to believe something. I want cultural and political freedom from religion. If people want to practice it, fine. I think it's looney, but I think buying a bottle of water that you can get out of the tap for free is looney too. I have no problems with people's freedom to be looney, as long as they aren't messing with other people. Religion is an instituation that messes with people for a living. Think of the Jesuit quote "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man". Catholic shcools, orphanages and missionaries.The Salvation Army. "We'll give you something good, but we are going to attach our crazy talk, so that soon you can't tell the difference between the two". So is asking that we stop holding children and the poor hostage to religious beliefs, is that "us versus them" tribalism? Why not teach comparative religion, let kids read all the holy books, and books like Russell's "Why I am an Atheist" or Dawkin's "The God Delusion" and then let them make up their own minds? Is that tribalist?

What I believe is different than what others do. That isn't tribalist. Expressing my beliefs isn't tribalist. Is it? Doesn't making provocative generalizations about "the interesting thing about atheists..." followed by commentary that has nothing specifically to do with a lack of belief in God actually encourages tribalism? Doesn't it seperate?

Raelians relate a sense of wonder to the mothership. So? The question of the source of one's sense of wonder has no bearling on the literal existence of that source, and certainly doesn't imply that atheists have no sense of wonder about the world.

"Let's go get our car fixed". Might as well have said "Shit homeboy, let's get us some fried chiken and colt 45".

As far as getting a rise out of someone, you did a good job. Isn't there a proverb about "be careful what you wish for"?[quote]

yes and...ooppss...and maybe it was necessary anyway.

[quote]Nearly anything, if framed in a way that appeals to a particular audience can be figuratively true. Half the "truths" in a work of art rest in the interpreter, and in many cases they are just reinforcing the beliefs that the interpreter already had. It doesn't matter though, because no one fails to believe that God can be used as a metaphor, we just believe that there is no literal God. That's what an atheist is.

I can't, and I really don't think you recognize how offensive you are being. You are behaving no different than a "harmless" (non-lynching) rascist or homophobic. Using prejoratives to describe a whole group of people and attributing characteristics that are based on nothing but you feeling that "those people" are like that is bigoted. Even if your observations are inductively supported by your limited personal experience. According to the personal experience of many bigots, blacks are generally antisocial and are more likely to be criminals. Is it okay to attibute this to their skin colour?

If atheists have a "tone" (or more specifically, if I have a "tone"), it is because people are contantly telling me that the sky is green, and no matter how often I look up they see a blue sky, they keep saying it. Worse than that, when I finally say "ok, if that's what you see, fine... but you might want to get your eyes checked", people start legislating what we can or can't do based on the sky being green, go to war over what shade of green the sky is, give tax breaks and other special treatment to people who have "the sky is green" clubs, indoctrinate children into their green sky clubs (rather than just teaching them blue and green and letting the kids look for themselves), and on top of that try to make us feel ashamed when we say "Actually, the sky looks blue to me, and even if I hook up a spectrometer, it says that it's blue. Are you sure you're not mistaken?". Can you use your imagination and think about what that would be like?

So do you agree that God doesn't literally exist? I can recognize when you are being figurative in the last sentence, so why do you have such a tough time recognizing when people are speaking about a literal and personal God (which is what most people mean when they use the term)? You don't have to explain the difference to me. I get that. Now can you identify the difference? Are you comfortable saying "There is no literal God"? If not, you might want to think about why saying such a thing would be difficult.

You could have fooled me with that first post. I don't care if you are angry, that doesn't give you the right to insult all atheists or speak falsely about them as a group. So maybe you would actually stake your life on being respectful of others when your anger and desire to get a rise out of people doesn't fog your ability to see your lack of respect.

I don't respect the belief, I do respect the believer if they deserve respect (everyone gets at least a free ounce of respect that they can burn up by being rude or nasty). I attack the belief. You attacked the believers. That is offensive. Disliking my (or anybody's) "tone" is no excuse.

Okay. Then could you explain what "I am part theist, part atheist, part agnostic...when it really comes down to it." means and leave out the "You go and figure that one out (an then try and explain it)." which sounds like an attempt to dodge having to explain it.

loveofsophia wrote:
Ok Ok, I fucked up. Hmm...

I guess I never really understood the penchant for going so heavy into theists, which you and 180 do. I believe I finally understand a little. I respect it even. I had little before this...so some good came of my reaction...or some good came of your addressing it.

I am feeling and thinking things about my experiences. I feel awe, a kind of overwhelming awe that makes the whole world sparkle, of sort, when I look at the causal sequence I model of the world around me. There have been experiences that bring the whole chain into question. Where did this causal web come from? I am not certain it is a ridiculous question or incoherent.

To me, this great nothing or God, or Brahman or whatever, it seems to answer the question imaginatively and poetically of how this causal web exists at all.You find this problematic...I presume.

I am trying to explain it.

I have always been unsatisfied with this response because it doesn't seem to incorporate the causal web and then the calling into question of how the web is at all. You just seem to be looking at the web and not including the question of how it is at all...

Certainly it is stuff we don't know about...but it indicates there is "big stuff" we don't know about...a simple point.

Well...I believe there is a certain sensitivity (of hurting others feelings) that I am oversensitive about. Like, coming up to some community of people isolated from everyone and telling them there sacred belief is like believing in flying poop balls...well...I could see how that might not be wise, however much you think it. I am being dramatic to try and point out something...I believe you get it.

Ok...I don't believe this is entirely true. Certainly many people think both...this simplification is useful in criticizing what is wrong with their thinking but it is an oversimplification. Do you disagree?

Catholic theologians maintain that all their symbols are far more dissimilar than similar to what it is they are representing. Is this not acknowledging a metaphorical aspect? I find that the whole ritual is merged with metaphorical and literal underpinnings for many people. I don't know how to verify this either way.

The heart being the seat of our emotions is actually physiologically true, what I mean is the vagus nerve being stimulated, activated by deep breathing (meditation), increases empathy and social inclinations.

I am attempting to point out that religion has long had a strong pyschological, physical, emotional, and social benefit to people. Certain aspects of the practice of religion should be adopted and modified (in my opinion). The whole literal thing is confusing for me...in that...I point to an inexplicablity above, how is this causal web presented me existing. Inherently the word or symble directed to capture that mind dulling question is figurative...hence my confusion sometimes with what exactly you guys are criticizing.

Well, I have more a tendency to look at something like universal pluralism and see a social model with potential for friendship, socializing, encouraging moral behavior, etc. I lean more toward modification than scrap the whole thing.

I agree we should...I just need to confront you when I believe a clarification went over into oversimplification.

Ok...I tried to address this above, the literal/figurative conundrum.

I understand where you are pointing...but I tried to point out my line of reasoning above. We should address it.

We have all this being around us and we are being. It seems to tumble on through time and we seem to be able to manipulate it. Now...I suspect you will be saying something like I superimpose the causal web of existence outside existence. This is not actually the case. I believe the causal web presents an inconsoluble problem that aristotle pointed out and even had the audacity to present conclusions regarding it. I don't know how else to say it, the whole thing being at all seems to beg questions that appear monumental and overarching. The realization of those questions is intense when realized...do you relate to this?

I guess I presumed you admit existence being at all is inexplicable. What are your thoughts?

I just don't see any difference between that place holder and any other.

Ok...to a fault I worry about stepping on toes. I believe you guys I have addressed so forcifully have less of a worry with regards to that and so I felt more prone to engage by stepping on toes (but obviously in a rather clumsy way).

I worry about others not differentiating between a critisicm of their ideas and a criticism of them. Is that really all that mysterious? I understand the difference but I am a little timid. I just don't see the point sometimes in making my opinion known because I don't trust others not to alienate or shame me for just thinking different (doesn't everyone have some similar feelings?).

Oh um...I still do have a problem with calling myself an atheist. I guess, technically, I very well might be one. Sheesh...that is not comfortable for me.

Benkei wrote:
From a cosmological point of view these aren't the only theories we can pick from and we run, in any case, in all sorts of problems due to our lack of understanding of how time "worked" at the beginning of this universe.

Accepting the scientific consensus that it all started from a singularity, the Big Bang ultimately has as little explanatory power as "God did it" as to the origins of our universe. The cause of the singularity at this point is something about which we can only theorise and in the "Mind of God" by Paul Davies a couple of cosmological theories are put forward that require no God, or first cause, at all without having to go back infinitely; which, considering how time is interrelated to the other 3 dimensions and therefore how our specific universe is and can be perceived, is scientifically non-sensical for anything "before" the existence of our universe. But such is the problem of anthropomorphism that we cannot escape such words.

Suffice is to say that many experiences are wholly inadequate of being scientifically explained or being measurable.

However, there is scientific proof that at this point some people are able to perceive in such a way that defies common sense and the scientific method. Some of this, such as presentiment, could actually fit in certain QM models (look into time-symmetry and retro-causal effects). The 6th sense is more real than you'd probably be willing to admit. Unfortunately, I can only theorise, perhaps it is simply information "travelling" in different dimensions, or the carrier of information is not readily detectable with normal equipment, that certain people are sensitive to.

This, of course, seems unrelated but if we can experience things, of which we have indirect proof, that, at this point in time, are not considered within the scientific domain as existing then the God question does not become so straightforward as it appears. There is plenty of anecdotal material of people having and/or claiming religious experiences (see William James, The varieties of religious experiences) It still remains very difficult - if not impossible - to derive any apodeictic statements from such experiences but I find the choice for a "God" presence plausible for those who have these experiences.

Benkei wrote:

... My intention is more to create an understanding of such experiences and why they move people to faith instead of putting all their eggs in the basket of materialism, which I simply hope might at least allow you to say: There are real people out there with real experiences of things that they in fact consider to be more real than everyday life. Whether they experienced a part of objective reality, or indeed a thing beyond accepted 4-dimensional reality or a thing qualitatively so different from our scientific assumptions that science fails to pick up on it or just a figment of their imagination, is an entirely different issue. The intuition of personal experience cannot be ignored by the person having it and as neither theist or atheist can offer proof we must at least accept the experience at face value. ...